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A bevy of privacy groups, spearheaded by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to investigate FacebookÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s latest privacy settings.The settings, which on one hand give you more control over privacy yet on the other open your lives to the world, have raised a bit of a ruckus since being unveiled days ago.EPIC and nine other privacy and consumer groups argue that FacebookÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s new privacy settings Ã¢â‚¬Å“violate user expectationsÃ¢â‚¬Â and Ã¢â‚¬Å“diminish user privacy.Ã¢â‚¬Â A few key excerpts from the complaint, which largely is a timeline of user backlash to the new settings:

FacebookÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s actions injure users throughout the United States by invading their privacy; allowing for disclosure and use of information in ways and for purposes other than those consented to or relied upon by such users; causing them to believe falsely that they have full control over the use of their information; and undermining the ability of users to avail themselves of the privacy protections promised by the company. Facebook represented that users Ã¢â‚¬Å“may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on Facebook,Ã¢â‚¬Â and that users Ã¢â‚¬Å“have extensive and precise controls available to choose who sees what among their network and friends, as well as tools that give them the choice to make a limited set of information available to search engines and other outside entities.Ã¢â‚¬Â FacebookÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s changes to usersÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ privacy settings and associated policies in fact categorize as Ã¢â‚¬Å“publicly available informationÃ¢â‚¬Â usersÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ names, profile photos, lists of friends, pages they are fans of, gender, geographic regions, and networks to which they belong. Those categories of user data are no longer subject to usersÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ privacy settings. FacebookÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s changes to usersÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ privacy settings and associated policies regarding application developers in fact eliminate the universal one-click option for opting out of Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect, and replaces it with a less comprehensive option that requires users to provide application developers with personal information that users could previously prevent application developers from accessing. ​

In a nutshell, these privacy groups want the FTC to thwart FacebookÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s privacy changes with more consumer protections in place